While traveling around the capital city with Washington Post
reporters, a top executive using his company’s mobile-security
technology
detected as many as 18 such devices mimicking legitimate cell
towers around the city, especially in sensitive areas around the
likes of the White House, the US Capitol building, and foreign
embassies.

Aaron Turner’s company Integricell is one of many outfits that
has developed technology to indicate surveillance devices - known
as ISMI catchers - used by police, intelligence entities, private
individuals, and others to track surrounding devices or to even
spy on phone calls.

ISMI catchers are named after a “unique identifying phone
code called an ISMI,” according to the Post, and can hijack
phone signals, tricking an average mobile phone attempting to
hook into established cell networks such as Verizon or AT&T.

While Integricell found at least 18 such ISMI catchers, others
believe that is simply the beginning.

“I think there’s even more here,” said Les Goldsmith,
top executive with ESD America, a tech company partnering with
Integricell to promote the company’s GSMK CryptoPhone. “That
was just us driving around for a day and a half.”

Others expressed doubt to the Post that the CryptoPhone -
currently marketed at $3,500 apiece - can accurately identify
individual ISMI catchers.

“I would bet money that there are governments that are spying
in DC,” said Christopher Soghoian, principal technologist
for the American Civil Liberties Union. “Whether you can
detect that with a $3,000 device, I don’t know.”

Goldsmith said that though there are ISMI catchers in the
locations identified by Integricell’s technology, CryptoPhone
cannot very well determine the source of espionage, whether it is
the US government, local police, a foreign intelligence entity,
or an individual.

The Federal Communications Commission has taken notice of
ISMI-catching technology, as even skilled hobby technologists
could build a surveillance device for less than $1,500. This
summer, the FCC organized a task force to study potential use and
abuse of ISMI catchers by foreign governments or private
citizens. The FCC does not have authorization to police US
government use of the catchers - which are illegal to use without
a search warrant or other legal clearance.

Meanwhile, researchers across the globe are racing to counter
ISMI catchers with a device known as “ISMI
catcher-catcher.” These efforts include the development of
free or inexpensive apps that could offer some protection from
surveillance.

CryptoPhone looks for three indicators when attempting to
identify an ISMI catcher: when a phone moves to a 2G network from
a more-secure 3G one; when a phone connection “strips
away” encryption; and when a cell tower does not offer a
“neighbor’s list” of other cell towers in the area. ISMI
catchers will not provide such lists, hoping to capture any phone
that it comes in contact with in a general area.

When cruising around DC with the Post, Integricell’s Turner
reported one or two of the three indicators. Only once in 90
minutes were all three indicators detected.

While there is a surge of interest in the likes of the
CryptoPhone, researchers contend that makers of IMSI catchers
will boost their own technology to outwit ISMI catcher-catchers,
signaling an arms race in surveillance and counter-surveillance
technology.

Earlier this month, Popular Science published a story - citing
ESD America’s CEO Goldsmith - reporting
that the CryptoPhone had found 17 different fake cell phone
towers, or interceptors, across the United States in cities such
as New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, Seattle, and more.

“Interceptor use in the US is much higher than people had
anticipated,” Goldsmith told Popular Science. “One of
our customers took a road trip from Florida to North Carolina and
he found 8 different interceptors on that trip. We even found one
at South Point Casino in Las Vegas.”

Although these interceptors act as fake cell phone towers, they
are not necessary large, physical structures. They could simply
be small mobile devices that act exactly like a real tower,
deceiving phones into giving up information. Such devices are
known as ‘Stingrays,’ after the brand name of one popular type of
interceptor.

Police agencies across the country are increasingly relying on
Stingrays to conduct investigations, but the powerful tools
aren’t often discussed in public.

In June, the US Marshals Service intervened in a dispute
between a Florida police department and the state’s ACLU chapter,
with the Marshals sweeping in at the last minute to seize
controversial cell phone records obtained with a Stingray device
before the ACLU was able to review them.

The ACLU has asserted that a Stingray enables the “electronic
equivalent of dragnet ‘general searches’ prohibited by the Fourth
Amendment,” and convinced a court to force the Sarasota
police to make the documents available for review.